Walking the Riverwalk

Today, while waiting for my bike inner tube to be replaced, instead of pedaling down the Chattahoochee Riverwalk as planned, we took a very short walk. Too muggy to walk very far, but we enjoyed Seward Johnson's bronze, When Now Becomes Then, as well as the herons, cormorants, gar, and turtles, who were also out enjoying a steamy, overcast Georgia July afternoon. We'll be back with inflated tires and a pair of binoculars for a longer trip soon.

View a (too small) video below or follow the link to a larger slideshow. I imported the digital images from the SD (Secure Digital) memory card to Picasa 3, uploaded them directly to my public, online Picasa album, and linked that here. Picasa 3 also allowed me to create and embed a photo video with the images. I like the slideshow better, I think.

Vocabulary Expansion, Meet Web 2.0

My fascination with words definitely influenced my career choice, and the Web has made investigating words instant, accurate, and convenient for me. NinjaWords, a really fast dictionary, is a particularly favorite site. I also like The Free Dictionary for its illustrations (sometimes), pronunciations (always), and thesaurus.

I've created vocabulary content on the Web for my own use with students, but had never thought of interacting with others online in a joint effort to create content. Recently I've found a couple of sites that encourage user contributions for vocabulary development. Word Ahead is a video vocabulary instruction site for SAT vocabulary words. Similarly set up, Wordia invites users to upload video of themselves defining a word that has special meaning to them. However, I have not found sites targeted for child-created vocabulary instruction. I really like that constructivist idea...especially the visual component...especially for my deaf students. Hmmmm...

Interactive Multimedia ASL Vocabulary

I am keenly interested in vocabulary development for all students, but especially for those who have limited access to the informal language-learning opportunities commonly afforded most children through exposure to ordinary conversation in the home: deaf children. In looking for a way to make vocabulary aquisition motivating, meaningful, and permanent for my deaf
students, I created American Sign Language (ASL) multimedia storybooks and interactive game-like instructional activities based on popular children's literature.


My students interacted with the books for five weeks during speech therapy sessions. Not only did they improve their understanding of the words taught, transfer that learning to their everyday lexicon, and demonstrate understanding of the stories, but they also loved interacting with the words within the multimedia activities. Their excitement in learning words with technology was inspirational for this old lady!